JPH0837614A - Remote control operation device for camera - Google Patents

Abstract

PURPOSE:To improve the remote control operability of a camera via a communication network by increasing the image compressibility after the camera undergone its posture control and diverting a voice channel to a video channel to increase the image transfer rate and to reduce the delay of communication. CONSTITUTION:Both terminals communicate with each other via the video/voice coding parts 7 and 18, the video/voice decoding parts 10 and 21, the system control parts 9 and 20, the communication control parts 11 and 16, the data communication parts 12 and 17, the circuit connection parts 13 and 15, and a communication network 14. When a camera 2 of the opposite party side undergoes its posture control through an operation part 25, the part 9 switches the coding operation to a QCIF from a CIF (intermediate format) to increase the compressibility. Then the transmission operation of a voice system is stopped and the voice channel is diverted to a video channel. Thus the part 9 transmits the signals equivalent to the control value of a panhead 3 of the camera 2 to a posture control part 8. As a result, the coding and communication delay are reduced and the posture of the camera 2 can be smoothly controlled via the network 14.

Description

Detailed Description of the Invention

[0001]

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 1. Field of the Invention The present invention relates to a system for communicating video, audio and data with a remote place via a communication line,
More specifically, it relates to attitude control of a camera at a remote location.

[0002]

2. Description of the Related Art Conventionally, when controlling a camera at a remote place via a communication line, a camera platform is rotated to change an image pickup location of the camera. The main usage is in video conferencing systems, etc., where the imaging location of the partner camera is changed while watching the video of the partner displayed on the monitor.

[0003]

However, in the prior art, when controlling a camera in a remote place, the position of the camera on the local screen is deviated from the image displayed on the monitor screen due to encoding delay and communication delay. However, in order to move it to a desired position, it is necessary to move it many times, and there is a problem that operability deteriorates.

[0004]

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION The present invention is intended to solve such a problem, and includes a camera for picking up a subject and a first image for converting an image picked up by the camera into an electric signal and encoding the electric signal. Encoding means, photographing position changing means for changing the photographing position of the camera, a microphone for inputting voice, second encoding means for encoding voice input from the microphone, and its encoding. In a camera remote control operating device having a communication means for bi-directionally transmitting audio and video by multiplexing the signal, the photographing position of the camera is changed from another terminal, and when the camera photographing position change signal is notified, the image of the image is changed. By compressing and turning off the audio mode, the channel assigned to the audio mode is assigned to the video channel to increase the video transfer rate. To provide a camera remote control operation apparatus to reduce the communication delay information.

[0005]

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS The present invention will be described in detail below with reference to the drawings by taking a video conference as an example.

The video imaged by the camera is compression-encoded by the video encoding unit, the voice input to the microphone is compression-encoded by the audio encoding unit, and both of them are multiplexed by the line connection unit and communicated. On the receiving side, which is transmitted to the other party through the network, it is separated by the line connection section, expanded and decoded by the video decoding section and audio decoding section, and can be viewed on the monitor and heard from the speaker. The above operation is repeated during a normal video conference. When controlling the position of the partner camera in such a system, it is necessary to transmit an electric signal corresponding to the amount to be changed to the platform of the partner camera.

On the operating side, the attitude changing section of the partner camera is changed by the operating section while watching the image taken by the partner camera on the monitor. The procedure is as follows. FIG.
Is an explanatory view for explaining the present invention, and when the partner camera can be controlled,
When the partner camera 2 is started to move (pan, tilt, zoom, etc.) from the operation unit 25, the signal is transmitted from the system control unit 2
0, the data communication unit 17, the line connection unit 15, and the communication network 14 to the other party. On the side notified of the start of camera movement, the signal is transmitted to the communication network 14, the line connection unit 13,
The system control unit 9 is notified via the data communication unit 12. At this time, the system control unit 9 causes the video encoding unit 7 to use a signal for changing the intermediate format (CIF) to QCIF, a signal for coarsening the quantization step size, and a transmission side audio mode for the line connection unit 12. Is turned off to notify a signal that is input from the microphone 5 and that does not send the audio signal encoded by the audio encoding unit 15.
The video encoding unit 7 notified of the signal converts the CIF into the QCIF.
In addition, the quantization step size is made coarse, the line connection unit 13 turns off the audio mode, and the channel assigned to the audio is assigned to the video channel to increase the video transfer rate. By coarsening the QCIF and the quantization step size, the data amount of the image to be transmitted in advance is reduced to increase the compression rate, and the audio mode is turned off to increase the transmission capacity of the image to be transmitted. After doing so, the system controller 9
Then, a signal corresponding to the amount to be changed to the platform 3 of the camera 2 is transmitted to the posture changing unit 8, and the image captured by the camera 2 is transmitted to the other party by the above procedure. When the camera movement signal is no longer notified, the system control unit 9 causes the video encoding unit 7 to
A signal for returning QCIF to CIF and a signal for returning the channel to the line connection unit 13 are notified to the image coding unit 7 and the line connection unit 13.

FIG. 2 shows the above procedure. FIG. 2 shows an operation sequence in which the terminal 1 controls the camera of the terminal 2, and the terminal 2 is controlled by an instruction from the terminal 1.

[0009]

As described above, according to the present invention,
It is possible to reduce the communication delay of the image information by smoothly controlling the attitude of the camera from a remote place, allocating the channel allocated to the audio mode to the video channel, and expanding the video transfer rate.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a structural explanatory view showing an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a sequence diagram of the present invention.

[Explanation of symbols]

 1 monitor 2 camera 3 pan head 4 operation unit 5 microphone 6 speaker 7 video encoding / decoding unit 8 attitude control unit 9 system control unit 10 voice encoding / decoding unit 11 communication control unit 12 data communication unit 13 line connection unit 14 communication network 15 line connection unit 16 communication control unit 17 data communication unit 18 video encoding / decoding unit 19 attitude control unit 20 system control unit 21 voice encoding / decoding unit 22 monitor 23 camera 24 camera platform 25 operation unit 26 Microphone 27 speaker

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A camera for picking up an image of a subject, a first coding means for converting an image picked up by the camera into an electric signal for coding, and a shooting position changing means for changing a shooting position of the camera. Camera remote control having a microphone for inputting voice, second encoding means for encoding the voice input from the microphone, and bidirectional audio and video communication means for multiplexing the encoded signal In the operating device,
Change the shooting position of the camera from another terminal, compress the image when the camera shooting position change signal is notified, and turn the audio mode off to change the channel assigned to the audio mode to the video channel. A camera remote control operation device characterized in that the communication delay of image information is reduced by allocating and expanding the video transfer rate.